Archive for October, 2016

I was at this regular food court in the morning for breakfast with my wife, Emily. We were waiting for our orders, when we got approached by this old man. From what I reckoned, he was probably in his early 60s. Donning a pair of thick sunglasses (perched on his hair like it’s going to make him 20 years younger or something), an oversized blue batik shirt and a pair of black old people slacks. He asked us this while pointing to an empty plastic chair at our table:

“Is this seat taken? Is someone sitting here?”

There were only 2 of us, so the seat wasn’t ‘taken’. But I didn’t know if he simply wanted that chair (which is common) or if he was asking if he could share our table with him – which was uncommon, because

a) Penang is a place that respects personal space, table sharing with strangers is not a common practice.
b) There were still a few empty tables at the back of the food court, and another lone-patron old lady with a table all by herself (if table sharing was his thing, he could have picked a better target, just saying…) – which oddly, he went right past and didn’t ask for a seat.
c) I do not like sharing tables with strangers. Even more so with old people. I’d lose my appetite if the table is shared by a stranger. If have to be, I’d rather give up my table than sharing it with strangers.

Anyway, I politely asked & remarked,

“Are you asking if you can take the chair? You can have the chair if you want.”

Old man then said, rather rudely “I want to sit here at this table!”

Bummer. I had to lie in order not to be rude, “I’m sorry, I am expecting a company to join us later. Perhaps you can find another table?”

Old man then flipped out and yelled at me, “THEN JUST SAY THE SEAT IS TAKEN!! YOU DON’T HAVE TO CHASE ME AWAY!!”

I was flabbergasted of course. Like, what the fuck just happened?? That was when my courtesy went out of the window. I went loud:

“HEY! Did you just say I chased you away?? This isn’t your table to begin with, how is it possible you got chased away?? Didn’t I tell you politely to find another table??”

Old man was taken aback because he didn’t think I would ‘talk back’, because you know, he is old. Things usually go his way because he’s a fucking geriatric, but too bad… I’m not a nice person. He then retorted in a toned down voice before walking off to the next table (like a table-to-table parasite):

“Aiyah! It’s still early in the morning, I don’t want to quarrel with you…” His response was ironic because he was the one who started to yell at us early in the morning. I wanted to castigate him further to lower his self esteem but, what’s the point. He had lived 60 over years to be this skeeve of a person, anything I say will not do him any favor but will only make me look bad for yelling at an old fart (that’s what it’ll look like to everyone). Who knows, someone might whip out a phone and the next thing I know, I might become an internet sensation in the wrong light. So I let him be and he eventually got a seat at the said lone-patron old lady’s table.

That fucking skeevy old man. If my daughter’s here, she would be traumatized. That is why I never liked old people. I think old people are overrated. Just because they’re old, they think they can get away with anything (and most of people are enabling them, by letting them get away with what they want). It’s exactly like spoiling a child – except that old people have way much less innocence. Most of them are rude, ignorant, and like to make scenes for attention. Some really bad ones, would even fabricate stories to discredit their own children or others, just to gain some pity attention. They set bad examples to our children and they fucking disgust me.

But I don’t wave a blanket dislike to all the old people because I know not all of them are skeevy. It’s just that in my code of things, they are always by default a “RETURN FALSE”… and will only get a “RETURN TRUE” when they do/did-not-do something or behave in such way that convince me otherwise.

A single Muslim colleague, who is from outstation, is renting an apartment in Penang. I don’t know about you guys but for me, being single and renting beckons for an interesting icebreaking conversation… which is what I was trying to do…

Me: “So… Sohaimi, I heard you’re renting. So do you have female housemates? Or all blokes?”

Sohaimi: “In Islam, it is forbidden for unmarried guys to be living in the same house with females.” *smiles*

Me: “What about when you bring home your girlfriend? Those guys have to make themselves scarce?”

Sohaimi: “I do not have a girlfriend. It’s forbidden to bring them home, even if I have one.”

He was saying as if it was forbidden for him to have a girlfriend.

Me: “And do you watch porn? or play games?”

Sohaimi: “I’m not into games and porn is ‘haram’ in Islam”

Me: “You don’t have a girlfriend, don’t have female housemates, you don’t play games. So what do you do? Watch movies at home?”

Me: “Don’t you know that downloading via bittorrent is illegal and is widely regarded as a form of larceny? I’m pretty sure stealing is ‘haram’ in Islam.”

Sohaimi: “Oh hahah that one is ok.”

*dumbfucked*

Adik-adik sekalian, if you want to be pious, go all the way lah. Illegal software / movie download is a form of theft, and if those traditional Sharia laws were to be enforced, Sohaimi should have his mouse clicking hand hacked off with a blunt machete for taking something he didn’t pay for. I really don’t understand how this kind of reasoning works on some people.